


A Light Through An Open Window

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety, Choking, Claustrophobia, Claustrophobia probably doesn't quite work this way, Delusions, Drug Use, Hurt/Comfort, I Ship These Two So Deeply Platonic It's Almost Romance, Mild Blood, Minor Self-Harm While Sleeping, Mostly Pre-Stream, Nightmares, Other, Snowed In, Tea, They Really Need to Invent Fantasy Prozac, Yelling in Celestial Sounds Like Bells Screaming, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 00:09:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13647306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Yasha never stayed in one place too often, preferring variety to stability. Maybe that’s why she got along with Mollymauk so well, because stable he wasn’t, and being around him was never dull.Molly didn’t question her preference for sleeping outdoors whenever she could, or her long silences, or that sometimes she’d leave his company for days or weeks at a time before coming back. “Everyone has their quirks,” he had said with a smile.Yasha had smiled back at him, grateful that he hadn’t pressed her on any of those subjects.





	A Light Through An Open Window

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this fic days after the first episode and only finished it now, and there's so much cut material I feel like I could do a DVD style commentary about it. 
> 
> Thank you to @CinWicked for letting me bounce ideas off him and for yelling at me to do things like stay hydrated.

Yasha had to have a way out of every situation. Every room she entered she noted the number and placement of doors and windows. She slept outside as often as she could, feeling safe with the sky above her and the horizon ahead of her. The weather had to be dire before she would seek shelter in a cave or at an inn, and in either of those places she had to have a view of the outside. She had gone down deep into a cave once, when she had been hired along with several other adventurers to deal with some vermin that were making trouble for a town. She had needed the money, so she had swallowed her fear and gone down underground. The next day everyone had returned, triumphant, but Yasha still awoke from nightmares of a death that had not happened, of being trapped under rocks, unable to breathe.

Yasha never stayed in one place too often, preferring variety to stability. Maybe that’s why she got along with Mollymauk so well, because stable he wasn’t, and being around him was never dull. She had run across him in her endless travels, saved his life, and they had been traveling together never since. She had been traveling alone since she had left her people, and it was nice to have someone along with her, someone else to back her up in a fight, or to do the talking when being intimidating didn’t work.

Molly didn’t question her preference for sleeping outdoors whenever she could, or her long silences, or that sometimes she’d leave his company for days or weeks at a time before coming back. “Everyone has their quirks,” he had said with a smile.

Yasha had smiled back at him, grateful that he hadn’t pressed her on any of those subjects.

**********

Early spring weather was a mercurial, unpredictable thing. Just that morning the air had been warm, the first of the spring flowers poking out of the earth to meet the bright sun. The cold came upon Yasha and Molly so fast it was almost a sound, like ice breaking, and an instant later there were dark gray clouds covering the sky like a plague. A moment later the snow started to fall from the sky as fast as water poured from a bucket. It was the kind of snowstorm that could kill.

It was Molly who spotted the cave, and how he had managed to see it through the blinding snow Yasha couldn’t begin to guess, since she could barely even make out the bright colors of his robes against all the white. She had hesitated for only a second when his hand caught hers, pulling her forward. It was either freeze to death or take shelter, which was no choice really. Maybe the storm would blow itself out in a few hours. She could handle a few hours in a cave.

Molly smiled as they ducked inside the cave, brushing the snow from his clothes. “Well, that was close. I didn’t know snow could fall so hard and so fast that it could _hurt._ ”

Yasha surveyed the cave with a critical eye. It was more than tall enough for her to stand in, which was a blessing, and it didn’t look as if any creatures had been living here and were possibly going to come back and try to defend their territory. It was deep enough that they’d be well out of the way of the wind, and they could even build a small fire and not be bothered by the smoke. Thankfully Yasha was strong and had kindling in her pack for just such an emergency, and she knew how to build a fire with little fuel and how to make it last. This place was ideal as far as caves went. As long as she didn’t think about the stone above her… below her… falling in on her….

“Yasha? Are you all right?”

Yasha blinked, realizing that her fists were clenched and her jaw was tight. She forced herself to relax, to nod, to speak. “Just worried about the storm.” She tried to keep her tone light, concentrated on making sure her voice didn’t shake. “Still, there are worse places to be snowed in, and we have plenty of food and water.”

Molly smiled widely. Yasha wondered, not for the first time, if Molly’s smile was sometimes as much of a mask as her usual lack of expression.

“Fate has indeed smiled upon us. Though it could be argued that fate is also responsible for the snow, so really it was the least fate could do to give us a way to escape it.” Molly frowned slightly. “Ah well, no matter.” He clapped his hands together sharply. “Let’s make a fire and get dinner going. I’m sure by morning the storm will have ended and we’ll be on our way again.”

Yasha stared at the cave entrance, at the snow blowing past at a feverish pitch, and shivered. “Yes, let’s hurry and build a fire. I’m freezing,” she lied.

_“_ You? Cold?” Molly gently teased. “I thought you Northerners bathed in ice water every morning and ran naked in the snow for fun.”

“I ran naked in the snow _once_. To impress a girl.” Yasha laughed, and it was only a little forced. She was halfway convinced that everything would be all right. She could master her fear for one night, and in the morning they would move on to the town they had been heading toward, a few miles past the woods. Everything would be fine.

*******

It was still snowing the next morning.

Yasha had been awake for hours. She had built up the fire some, then walked toward the cave entrance and looked out on white as far as she could see, more snow falling and being blown about by the wind. Thankfully the wind wasn’t blowing the snow into their cave, and the entrance was relatively clear, though she could see snowdrifts that were probably up to her waist.

“Yasha?” Molly’s voice sounded rough, like it sometimes did when he first woke up. “How’s the weather?”

“Still snowing,” Yasha replied, not turning away from the scene outside.

She heard the sound of boots on stone, the gentle swish of robes, and then Molly was next to her, looking out at the storm. He said something in a language that she didn’t know, the sound of it vibrating in her bones, most likely a curse. “So much for optimism,” he said. “Looks like we won’t be leaving today after all.”

Molly turned away and walked back to the fire and Yasha reluctantly turned away herself. It would look odd if she stood by the cave entrance all day. She sat by the fire with Molly, keeping the cave entrance in her line of sight. Everything was fine. She could do this. She could.

“Maybe you should build the fire up a little more,” Molly said as he went about making porridge. Out of the two of them, he was by far the better cook. “You’re shivering again.”

Yasha pulled her heavy cloak around herself and willed her body to stop shaking. She had forgotten how hard this was, it’d been so long. “I’m fine.”

Molly raised an eyebrow. “If you say so.” He tasted the porridge, frowned, and then added more salt. “You’d be more used to the weather than I am. I can’t imagine living in a place where it snowed all the time.”

“It wasn’t _all_ the time,” Yasha countered. “We had some lovely springs and summers in the mountains, and yes, our winters were longer than most, but that’s what made the warmer times so special. It’s what got you through the winters, those memories. You’d be stuck inside for weeks at a time, sometimes several families in one house, with no privacy whatsoever. If you couldn’t escape inside your own head, to warmer, brighter times, you’d go mad.”

Molly was looking at her with a curious expression, chin in one hand and just a little bit of a smile crossing his face.

Yasha narrowed her eyes at him. “What?”

“It’s just, I think that’s both the most you’ve ever talked about your home and the most I’ve ever heard you speak at once.” Molly chuckled a little.

“You act like I never talk at all!” Yasha shoved Molly playfully in the shoulder, almost knocking him over. It was true that before she had met him she had mostly stayed silent, keeping her feelings from showing on her face or in her speech. Hells, she wouldn’t even have dreamed of casually touching someone before she had met him. There had been something about him though, maybe his easy smiles or his way with words that something inside her had responded to, coaxing her into expressing herself more, slowly unlearning the lessons of her upbringing. “Maybe it’s you who talks too much!”

Molly grinned. “There’s some who would agree with you, I have no doubt.” He stirred the porridge thoughtfully. “So your… clan? Tribe? Your people, they must have lived in large houses.”

“They weren’t like the houses here,” Yasha said. “Not tall. They were long, with no windows, just holes to let out the smoke from the fires. There were always fires burning in the center of the house, and on either side of the fires was where we slept and ate and worked.”

“Sounds like it’d get awful crowded.”

Yasha nodded. “It wasn’t so bad, if it was just _your_ family group. But sometimes misfortune would fall on another family, and you’d take them in, because even if they weren’t your blood, they were still _family_ , you know? So you’d end up all crowded together for weeks at a time, just hoping for a break in the weather so you could go _outside_ , no matter how cold it was, just to get a few moments to yourself.” Yasha swallowed hard. She remembered the winters when everyone had been packed in so tight it had felt like she couldn’t even breathe without touching someone else, where the walls had felt like they were closing in, and during it all she had pretended she was fine, because that’s what she’d had to do.

“Yasha?” Molly was holding out a bowl of porridge to her. “You looked like you were a million miles away just now.”

Yasha looked past Molly towards the entrance of the cave. There was still air, still sky outside. She took the bowl of porridge with hands that barely shook, and tried not to think about home.

*****

Yasha had been grateful when Molly had brought out a deck of playing cards, at least at first. Being snowed in was incredibly dull, and learning a new card game would presumably take her mind off things. What she hadn’t counted on was Molly trying to teach her a card game of such complexity.

“So it’s snowing, which means threes are wild, and this is your fifth hand, so low cards are high and vice versa, and you’re facing north so that means—“

Yasha scowled and threw down her cards. “It means I give up. We’ve been playing for an hour and I can’t keep track of all the rules you keep adding.”

“That’s the nature of Dragon Poker,” Molly said, grinning. “It all comes down to conditional modifiers.” He picked up her cards and studied them. “Hmmmm, no, I still would have won.”

“Of course.” Yasha watched Molly reassemble the deck and shuffle the cards once more.

“Something more familiar perhaps? I can try teaching you again some other time, when you aren’t so distracted.”

Yasha didn’t say anything, just stared out at the snow. 

“Oh how I’ve missed your silences,” Molly said after a few minutes, then he sighed. “I’m sorry, I know you hate being stuck in here just as much as I do.”

Yasha clenched her jaw, because if she didn’t keep her mouth closed she was going to scream. He didn’t know anything, and she couldn’t tell him, couldn’t admit her fear, not even to him. She just had to endure, even though she could feel the constant fear wearing away at her like water wearing away stone.

*****

The rest of the day was spent in relative silence, broken only by the crackling of the fire and the hiss of the snow falling outside. Yasha had tried not to notice Molly stealing glances at her as she stared out at the snow. Several times he opened his mouth as if to speak, only to close it again, his tail thumping against the cave floor as if he were an agitated cat. After a dinner that Yasha had eaten without tasting, Molly had taken out his fortune telling deck, spreading his cards out in one layout after another, frowning at them. Yasha didn’t know what the cards meant, didn’t even know if Molly believed in his own fortunes, but it was obvious that whatever the cards were telling him, he didn’t like it.

Yasha laid down and tried to sleep. Seeing Molly being anxious only fed into her own anxiety, her own fear, and she kept almost falling asleep only to wake up suddenly, her heart pounding, convinced that the walls of the cave were closing in on her. Eventually though, exhaustion claimed her, and she fell into dreams.

_Yasha sat on the floor of her childhood home, listening to the sound of snow hissing outside, born by a bitter, freezing wind. It had only been a day, but she felt the need to go outside, to see the horizon and the sky, the compulsion to do so strong that she felt the muscles in her legs twitch as she forced herself to stay still and tend the fire like she had been told. Maybe she could sneak out later, after everyone else was asleep. She had been caught sneaking out once or twice and had been punished for it, but it didn’t matter because no one had figured out her real reason for needing to be outside, no one knew that if she spent too long in an enclosed space that she felt like she couldn’t breathe, like her heart would burst from her chest. No one could know, because if they did…._

_Suddenly the house was full of people, crowding around her, bumping into her. Yasha struggled to stand, looking around in a panic. Where had all these people come from? She could see her parents and the Elders looking at her, whispering, pointing. They knew. Somehow they knew she wasn’t fearless and she was going to be cast out. Suddenly she was small again, a child wading through a sea of adults, crying, her emotions betraying her as she tried to run for the door as the people pressed closer to her, blocking her escape and it was so cold, the fire must have gone out, she was freezing—_

The cold was real.

Yasha blinked in confusion, her vision white and gray in the darkness. She was outside, nearly waist deep in snow, and when she looked behind her she could see the cave several yards away, churned up snow showing where she had been. Had she been walking in her sleep? She must have been.

Yasha shivered, wrapping her arms tightly around herself as she stared up at the sky. The wind had died somewhat and snow was still falling, but the flakes were bigger, softer. The air wasn’t as cold as it had been, but she shouldn’t stay out here for very long. She would trudge back through the snow and into the cave and the warmth of the fire. She would. In a moment.

One moment stretched into another.

Yasha couldn’t feel her feet, and the numbing cold was creeping up higher as she stood there. She needed to go back inside.

Yasha kept staring up at the sky, the big wide open sky. Her face was wet. Had she been crying, or was that simply the snowflakes melting as they landed on her upturned face? It didn’t matter. She would go back inside in a moment.

More moments passed. Yasha heard a sound like somebody breathing hard, then realized it was her. The cold air burned in her lungs, but she welcomed it. It felt like she was breathing properly for the first time since she had entered the cave, like the air was actually doing her some good.

“Yasha?”

Yasha whipped her head towards the voice. Molly was standing just outside the cave, one of his swords held loosely in one hand as he looked around for whatever danger he thought might have made her venture outside.

“Yasha, what are you doing out here? What’s wrong?” He started walking towards her, trudging slowly through the snow. “You need to come inside, you’ll catch your death out here.”

Yasha stared at him, shivering so hard that her teeth rattled. There was a small part of her that recognized her friend, understood that what he was saying was logical and that she should listen to him. But there was a part of her, growing bigger by the second, something made up of panic and fear, something cold and hot all at the same time, that only saw a demon who was going to drag her back into the cave. He was going to take away the sky and the air and all there would be was stone all around her, closing in, crushing her.

When the demon reached out and touched her arm, Yasha felt the fear and rage boil up and out of her, saw her hand lash out. She didn’t feel the blow connect, but the demon staggered back from her, spitting blood into the snow.

“Yasha, what in the Nine Hells?! Have you gone mad?”

_“Stay away from me, demon!”_ Yasha roared, not in Common, but in Celestial, a language she had not spoken in years. _“I won’t let you drag me back under the ground!”_

Yasha watched the demon take a step back, not taking his eyes off her. She felt curiously removed from the situation, like she was watching a play unfold. She watched as he raised his sword slightly.

“Yasha, I don’t want to hurt you, please—“

Yasha was already lunging at him, and the snow that slowed her down also made it hard for him to dodge her, and then her hands was around his throat, squeezing, as they both fell into the snow. Yasha could barely feel her fingers, but the demon was wheezing underneath her, clawing at her hands with one of his own. Soon it would be dead and Yasha would be free—

The blow to her temple was clumsy and weak, but the pain was enough of a shock that Yasha felt her grip on the demon loosen. He managed to scramble away from her as she half staggered to her feet.

The demon looked at her, jaw clenched even as its eyes held a look of resignation. “I hope you can forgive me for this later,” it said, looking her in the eye.

Yasha felt something thick well from her eyes as her vision blurred and darkened. Tears? Blood? She stumbled towards where she had seen the demon last, her clenched fists meeting nothing but air. She roared her fury into the night.

The second blow to her head was harder and more precise. For a second the pain broke through the panic and the fear and whatever else, giving Yasha a second of lucidity. “Molly?” she said, or thought she said, and then she was falling first into cold, and then into darkness, where she felt nothing at all.

************

Consciousness came and went. Sometimes Yasha was so cold she’d half-wake from shivering, and sometimes she felt she must have rolled into the fire she was so hot. Nightmares and memories blurred and mixed in her mind. She was trapped in a chest, her small child’s fists beating on the wood. She was trapped in a room, people touching her on all sides, and she couldn’t find the door.

Through it all, Yasha could hear someone speaking to her in frustrated, exhausted tones that carried kindness underneath. Gentle hands wiped the sweat from her forehead, helped her drink something that was bitter but that made the pain go away for awhile and the burning stop. When she was finally able to open her eyes and keep them open for more than a few seconds, she saw Molly, asleep sitting up, as if he had fallen asleep watching her. The bruises on his face and neck were wine-dark in the flickering firelight.

The cave. She was back in the cave, laying on her bedroll and covered by both her blanket and what felt like one of Molly’s. Yasha tried to turn her head and a sharp pain lanced through her skull, making her wince.For a minute her vision swam dizzily before sorting itself out.

“Yasha?” Molly’s voice was an abused rasp, like it had been when they had first met. He knelt in front of her, his eyes searching hers for something. He held up his hand, raising three fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Yasha blinked slowly. “Three. Why?”

“To be honest I have no idea,” Molly admitted, shrugging. “I’ve seen healers do it though. I suppose since you gave the correct answer it means I didn’t completely damage your brains when I hit you. Honestly I’m more reassured by the fact that you’re speaking a language that I can understand and that you’re not trying to kill me.” He put his hand down, looking relieved. “I’m so very sorry that I had to hit you. How do you feel?”

“Head hurts,” Yasha said immediately. In truth her whole body ached. “And I’m thirsty.”

“Well, luckily I have the remedy for both those things,” Molly said cheerfully, though the roughness of his voice spoiled the effect somewhat. “Though I must admit I didn’t think I was going to go through my supply of willow bark so quickly.”

Yasha should have known Molly would have had some sort of tea for this kind of thing. She was pretty sure half of what he carried in his bag were canisters of various teas or pouches of several illicit substances that you could make _into_ tea. She tried sitting up while Molly did things with hot water and leaves and powders, and managed it on her second try, even though it made her head pound fiercely. She got a glimpse of the cave entrance as she did so, and was surprised to see that the snow had nearly stopped, just a few errant flurries drifted by in the light breeze.

“The sun tried to come out a few times,” Molly said. “I think the worst is over.”

Yasha dragged her gaze away from the outside and took the wooden cup that Molly offered her. Up close the bruises looked even worse, black and blue and red. She stared down at her tea.

“You’re going to want to give that a minute,” Molly said, leaning back against the wall with a sigh.

The silence stretched between them, endless and heavy, broken only by Molly clearing his throat, then wincing, then wincing again when he took a sip of his own tea.

“Sorry,” Yasha said softly, looking up at him.

“Oh what, for the choking?” Molly’s face broke into a strained grin, his eyes dancing. “What’s a little choking between friends? It can be quite enjoyable actually, under the right circumstances—“ He broke off abruptly, rubbing his hand over his face wearily. “Sorry, sorry, inappropriate, I know. Defense mechanism. You have your silences and I fill the air with nonsense.” He stared down at his own tea for a moment, then back up at her, face serious. Yasha noticed suddenly that there were dark purple shadows under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept properly in a while.

“How long was I unconscious?”

Molly glanced up at the ceiling of the cave for a moment, as if the rock above held the answers. “Day and a half? I think? I wasn’t keeping track very well. After—“ he waved his hand vaguely. “It took me forever to drag you through the snow, and then I had to half carry you over to the fire. You were shaking so much, you were so cold, and then you were feverish instead. Once I started dosing you with willow bark your fever broke, which was a relief. Then all I had to worry about was when you would wake up, _if_ you would wake up, if I should try to carry you the two miles into town in waist deep snow, if I could risk leaving you alone and try to bring back help myself, if I should just wait.” He shook his head and took a sip of tea. “You should drink that before it gets cold. It tastes even worse when it’s cold.”

Yasha obediently took a few swallows of tea, grimacing at the bitter taste. Still, if it would help with the pain she’d gladly drink a kettle of the brew. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

“What _happened?_ ” Molly asked. “I honestly thought I was having a more persistent than usual nightmare when I saw you, or that you had been possessed by a wandering spirit or some such thing. You looked _terrified_ of me, and I’ve never seen you look scared of anything in all the time I’ve known you.”

Yasha shook her head, instantly regretted the action, and drank some more tea. “I wasn’t scared of you,” she said, gripping her cup tightly. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. Part of me knew who you were, but the fear part, the panic part, all it knew was that you were going to make me go back into the cave. I’m—“ Her voice started shaking. She had never spoken her fear out loud before, she had never dared. “Small spaces, enclosed spaces, crowds…. they scare me.”

Yasha didn’t know how she had expected Molly to react. With scorn maybe, or disbelief, maybe pity. What she hadn’t expected was for him to look at her with sudden and complete understanding.

“And we’ve been stuck in a cave for days. Why didn’t you _say_ something? Never mind, doesn’t matter at the moment,” Molly said quickly. “Would it help if you were closer to the entrance of the cave?”

“Yes,” Yasha said, and the syllable was barely out of her mouth before Molly was helping her stand up, then moving her bedroll to a new spot in the cave, closer to the cave entrance but still away from the worst of the drafts. Just moving a few feet closer gave her a better view of the outside, and the barest breath of a breeze touched her face. She could even still feel the warmth of the fire, though not nearly as strong as it had been. It was a trade-off she was more than happy to make. It wasn’t ideal, not like being outside, but it was good enough.

Molly dragged his own bedroll over, across from her, sitting back down. “Better?”

“Much,” Yasha said. “Thank you.”

“You’re warm enough? I’m not sitting too close, am I?” Molly’s tail twitched like an anxious cat.

“I’m fine,” Yasha said, a little too sharply, then immediately felt bad. “Sorry.”

Molly waved her apology away. “It’s fine. I was fussing, and I should know by now you don’t like fuss. So… last night?”

Yasha drained the rest of her tea but kept holding on to the empty cup so she had something to occupy her hands. “I had a nightmare where I was trying to run away from the Elders, and when I woke up I was outside. Once I was out, I couldn’t make myself go back in, even though I knew I had to. It was like… like my body wasn’t listening to my head.”

Molly nodded. “Yeah. I know that feeling.” He drank more of his tea and then set the cup aside. “I feel like I should have figured this out before. You always seemed ill at ease indoors and I’ve seen you flinching away from people when we walk through a crowded street, but I never put those things together.”

“I didn’t want you to know,” Yasha said simply. “I’ve had a lot of practice, not letting people know. No good would have come of it back home. They—“ She frowned, rubbing at the rim of her cup with her thumb.

“Hey, Yasha? You don’t have to tell me anything else, if you don’t want to.” Molly rubbed at his neck, fingers sliding along his peacock tattoo. “We all have our secrets.”

Yasha shook her head, noting that it hurt much less to do so. “No. I want to talk, for once.” She didn’t smile, but a muscle in her jaw twitched as if she was thinking about it. “It may never happen again, so you should appreciate it while it lasts.”

Molly chuckled and leaned back, hands behind his head. “There’s that sense of humor I love. Go on then. I’ll try to keep the interruptions to a minimum.”

Yasha nodded, considering where to start. “Where the fear started… it’s…” She felt the heat of shame creeping up her neck. “It’s stupid. Most people of scared of proper things, like death or monsters.”

“You’d be surprised what people are scared of,” Molly said. “Go on.”

“It was spring, and all my brothers and sisters and cousins, we were playing hide and seek. I was five years old maybe, and small for my age, if you could believe that looking at me now. I always found the best hiding spots, and even the older children had trouble finding me most times. That day, Momma was airing out the blankets, because it was such a nice day, and she had left the blanket chest open. It was a beautiful thing, made of heavy wood, and just the right size for me to fit into. I didn’t think about how heavy the lid was when I closed myself in it, I just thought I had found the perfect hiding place. I guess technically I did, because the other children didn’t find me. They didn’t even hear me crying when I realized I wasn’t strong enough to open the lid and let myself out. It was Momma who found me, but I don’t remember that. I just remember crying, and then I remember it getting hard to breathe….”

Yasha trailed off, staring outside for a very long time, and just let herself breathe for a few minutes. She saw Molly watching her, out of the corner of her eye, but he didn’t say anything, just let her have her moment.

“After that, well, after that I was more careful. I was seeker in our games instead of the one hiding, and I was look-out when the other children went exploring caves in the mountains. This wasn’t seen as odd or out of place, it didn’t draw any attention. No one knew I no longer felt comfortable anywhere but under the open sky, that even my own house didn’t feel safe. When I started sleeping outside in good weather, it was just seen as me trying to get closer to nature, and that was seen as good, desirable. They didn’t know that sleeping in my own house, with its one door and no windows, felt as confining as being stuck in that chest had been. Winter was a torment for me, with all of us crowded together, but I kept myself busy, learned how to keep my emotions off my face, so no one knew.” Yasha looked at Molly. “And now you want to ask me why would I hide such a thing from my own people?”

Molly shrugged. “To be honest, I assumed your clan had bought into some stereotypical bullshit about how ‘fear is weakness’.”

“It’s what the Elders believed, yes. They would take in anyone, any race, and it didn’t matter if you weren’t the strongest or the fastest, you just had to be completely without fear, or at least, had to act like nothing frightened you. Dishonor and exile was the price you paid for fear, and when I was a child I thought it would be the worst fate in the world. Then I grew up and left the clan behind anyway, for my own reasons, and I don’t regret that. But some things stayed with me I guess. The fear of being discovered. The shame of being afraid.”

“Well,” Molly said after a long moment, as if making sure she was finished. “I’m the last person who would shame you for being afraid.” He held out a hand out for her empty cup and she surrendered it, noting that he glanced at the leaves in her cup with a critical eye.

“What do the tea leaves tell you?”

Molly looked at Yasha and smiled. “The only thing they tell anyone, that you need more tea.” He stood, moving back over to the fire and rummaging through his pack. “How are you feeling? Better?”

“I feel…” Yasha considered the question. “Tired, but good? Wrung out. Like I was pushing something very heavy and now I’m not.”

Molly chuckled. “I meant physically, but that works too. I’ve heard actually talking about your problems can do that to a person. How’s your head?”

“Oh, better, thank you.”

Yasha stared out over the snow, the occasional errant breeze feeling heavy and damp across her face. There was a trace of spring warmth to the air that hadn’t been there a short time ago, and she could see the beginnings of fog rising up from the snow. “It’s warming up out there. If we leave tomorrow we might be trudging through heavy slush instead of proper snow.”

“Oh joy,” Molly said sarcastically. “Still, it can’t be helped, and according to the map it’s only a few miles to the next town. As long as the weather holds, we should be fine.”

“Never can tell, this time of year. Almost feels like the weather might be working itself up to a thunderstorm, though it’d be early for that.”

“Well let’s hope our luck holds,” Molly said. “Though being stuck here wasn’t particularly lucky, though I guess you could say it was illuminating. Maybe we should hope for our luck to turn to the better then.” There was something about Molly’s tone and the silence that followed that made Yasha think something was bothering him, and she studied him closely when he sat back down across from her and silently handed her a fresh cup of tea.

Silences for Molly weren’t as common as they were for Yasha, but she had been traveling with him long enough to know when he was silent because he didn’t have anything to say versus him being quiet because he had too much on his mind. She watched him as he stared outside the cave, his eyes flicking toward the sky as if looking for something, the hand not clutching his own cup of tea rubbing at the scars along his arm as she had seen him do before when he was agitated. He had seemed fine up until she had mentioned—

“Is it thunderstorms for you?” As soon as the words had left her mouth she wished she could take the question back. Molly had always respected her silences, and she had always done the same.

Molly turned his head back toward her with a tiny ghost of a smile. “You don’t miss much, do you?” He took a sip of his tea and Yasha did the same, recognizing the blend as one of Molly’s favorites, something piney and smoky that made Yasha think of campfires. She sipped her tea and this time she waited patiently until Molly spoke again.

“It’s different, I think. It’s not a _fear_ exactly, it’s just… a fair number of unpleasant experiences in my life have occurred during thunderstorms, so now when I hear that first rumble of thunder, it’s like my brain starts screaming at me that something bad is going to happen, starts replaying all the worst bits of my past. It gets hard to breathe, I start to shake. Sometimes things start not feeling real, like I’m watching a play or having a nightmare. Of course my nightmares are worse during storms, because why should those take the night off for weather?”

Yasha knew about the nightmares. Not the content of them, but she had seen Molly gasp awake more than once, shaking, unable to go back to sleep, unable to speak for hours afterwards. She searched her memory, trying to recall if she had seen Molly exhibit any of the behaviors he had described. There hadn’t been that many thunderstorms last year, not that she remembered, but she had been with him for at least one or two, she was sure of it. “I’ve never noticed. How could I not have noticed?”

Molly grinned ruefully. “Because, just like you, I didn’t want you to know, and I am very good at distracting people from what I don’t want them to see. I was honestly thankful you usually went straight to your room after we got settled in, it meant you didn’t have to watch me become very loud and try to start a party with whomever happened to be around. Of course, sometimes people weren’t in a partying mood, and then it was just me and whatever bottle of something interesting I could charm out of the tavern keeper. Those weren’t the best nights. Quiet just makes all this…” Molly gestured vaguely at his head, “just makes all the unpleasant thoughts louder.”

Yasha thought about that, about the two of them, both alone in their rooms, both suffering in different ways.

Molly looked thoughtfully at Yasha, head slightly tilted. “You know, there’s some things you could try that might help you.”

Yasha raised an eyebrow. “Drugs?” She asked, because it was the first thing that came to mind.

Molly laughed. “Drugs aren’t always the answer,” he said with a laugh. “But yes, maybe drugs. Certain herbs, certain combinations of things. You don’t have to, of course, but if you did, well, it’s safest when there’s someone else around. Just in case.”

Yasha knew that Molly was probably speaking from experience. “Hmmmm. I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” she said. “Do you have anything I could try now?” Something that would make being in the cave until morning more bearable would be welcome, and she had a feeling that Molly needed the distraction as well.

“I might,” Molly said, draining his tea with a grin. “Finish your tea, I’ll go see what I have.”

When Molly went to stand up, Yasha reached out and touched Molly’s hand. He looked down at her, surprise naked on his face. She had gotten more relaxed about initiating casual physical contact since she had met him, but that didn’t mean it was a common occurrence.

“Thank you,” Yasha said, leaving her hand on his for a moment before pulling it back.

“For what?”

There were a lot of things Yasha could thank him for. For being kind, for taking care of her, for trying to help, for letting her see behind the smile he wore to something vulnerable. She felt like saying all that, any of that, would diminish the sentiment somehow. “Just, thank you,” she finally said.

There was something in the way he smiled back that made Yasha think Molly had heard what she hadn’t said.

**********

Spring and summer that year seemed unusually prone to bad weather. Later, Yasha would think of that time as “the seasons of storms,” and remember it nearly with fondness. That was the year Yasha insisted on staying in the same room as Molly when the weather was bad, which had confused him at first, because the addition of him didn’t seem to aggravate her fear of enclosed spaces.

“It’s you,” she had said, trying to articulate her thoughts. “There’s only one of you, and you’re not in my space unless I want you to be. So it’s fine.”

That was the year she found several ways to cope with her fears, and though the fear never entirely faded, it became something she could at least manage more often than not. There had been a lot of trial and error involved with the process, including one night that Yasha didn’t remember but Molly swore up and down involved nudity, running along rooftops, and chocolate pudding, and that’s why he didn’t give her strong hallucinogens anymore. Yasha was pretty sure he had made the story up. Well, mostly sure.

It was the year where Yasha learned that the easiest way to keep Molly from disappearing too far into his own thoughts during thunderstorms was to give him something to do. He taught her Dragon Poker, more successfully this time, and even though it took her almost until autumn, she managed to beat him exactly once. He had looked so shocked and yet so proud that it had made Yasha laugh for a solid minute and had been well worth the many many hours of frustration.

Molly taught her how to speak Infernal at the same time he taught her Dragon Poker, which came in handy because even the most mundane words sounded like curses when spoken in Infernal, and Dragon Poker involved a lot of cursing on Yasha’s part. Her pronunciation always seemed a little stilted though, something about the shape of her tongue seemed to make the language suffer in her mouth.

It was the year Yasha saw just how bad Molly’s nightmares got during thunderstorms. She didn’t know which ones were worse, the ones where he woke up screaming and shaking, or the ones where he woke up and lay there still and silent as a dead thing, and it seemed to take him hours to remember he was alive, that he could walk and talk and speak. She had learned early on in their travels together that waking him up from his nightmares did more harm then good, that he’d wake up scared and confused, not knowing who he was, or she was, and he’d lash out, though he never did manage to hurt her, she knew it upset him.

One night though, one night Molly’s nightmares had been worse than usual. Yasha herself had been deep in dreams, dreams of herding goats on the mountainside, singing simple little songs to them in Celestial, because they seemed to behave better when she did that. It had been a good dream, a safe dream, and then she had woken up to Molly’s pained whimpers, his read eyes partially open and dull, his nails raking at his own skin, blood on the sheets. Yasha had grabbed his hands without thinking, her dream still fresh in her mind, and started singing, very softly. She hadn’t expected anything to happen, it had just felt like the right thing to do at the time, and she was used to her dreams giving her hints of things she needed to do. Molly had quieted instantly, his breathing suddenly calm and even, his eyes closing all the way, and he didn’t have any more nightmares that night as far as she could tell. When he had woken up the next morning he had looked down at his arms, which bore no wounds, then down at the sheets with their streaks of blood, and then at her. Yasha didn’t say anything and neither did he, but she continued the practice of singing to him in his sleep, and he slept better for it.

They both still had their bad days and their bad nights, there were still rough times mixed in with the good, but the bad times weren’t nearly as bad and the good times were even better.

***********

“It’s funny,” Molly said.

Yasha waited for him to continue that thought. She had just come back to him again after a month away, and she had brought him back some very interesting things on her travels, including something she couldn’t remember the name of at the moment but that smelled like roses and starlight when smoked and rounded off the sharp edges off the world in a pleasant way. She was content to listen to the rain on the roof of the inn and sit on the floor and let Molly sit in a chair and braid her hair.

“You always find me, no matter where I’ve gotten to while you’ve been gone.”

“Yes,” Yasha said simply.

“Is it because you’re an aasimar?” Molly said it casually, like he was talking about the weather. “Because I’ve heard several fantastical stories about aasimar, but it can be so hard to sort out what’s true and what isn’t.”

Yasha went very still for a moment, then slowly tilted her head back until she was looking at Molly, his hands still in her hair. “What makes you think I’m an aasimar?”

Molly gave her a look. “Yasha, please. I’ve known since I’ve met you that you were some flavor of not strictly human. I’d say it was your eyes that gave you away, but not just the color of them. If you really want to pass better you should pretend you can’t see in the dark. Stumble around a bit, curse your weak mortal eyesight or something.”

“I could just have excellent night vision.”

“Want me to go down the list?” Molly smiled at her, his tone teasing. “Is that how we’re going to do this? Fine. That winter when we got snowed in? You spoke Celestial when I found you out in the snow. Which, by the way, you should yell at people in Celestial more often when you’re trying to scare them, because believe me, you wouldn’t think something that sounds like bells screaming could be terrifying, but it very much is. I didn’t bring it up at the time because it didn’t seem important and there were a lot of other things going on, and I didn’t understand _what_ you were saying, but I’ve heard the language before.”

Yasha shrugged. “Anyone can learn Celestial.”

“True, but it’s mostly a language for scholars and wizards, from what I’ve seen, and you’re neither. Besides, humans speak it so poorly that it might as well be another language, and elves only manage it a little bit better. I didn’t realize that until I heard what the language is actually supposed to sound like, from you, from someone who would have been born knowing it.”

“Maybe I just have a gift for languages.” Yasha didn’t know why she was trying to deny anything at this point, possibly just to rile Molly up a little. It wouldn’t hurt him to know, she supposed, and she knew he would keep her heritage secret if she asked him to, which she would, later.

“If that were true you’d be better at Infernal,” Molly said with a chuckle. “Though your accent isn’t quite as atrocious as it used to be. But fine, I’ll bring up one more point, which I am sure you’ll try to explain away. You’ve healed me, with magic, at least once that I can remember during a very bad night, and possibly one time before that. And you’re not a cleric or a paladin, I can spot those from a mile away, and most of them wouldn’t be nearly as friendly towards me as you are.”

Yasha sighed just a little, but she smiled a little too. “Fine, fine. So you were awake for that?”

“Not actually awake. Aware, maybe. It was…. very bad inside my head that night and I remember the pain and the blood and then… all that went away, and in the morning there was blood on the sheets but that was it. No wounds. No new scars. I didn’t thank you for it then, but I thank you for it now, and for all the nights after, because don’t think I didn’t notice that my dreams are less terrible when you’re here. Is the singing magic too?”

Yasha shook her head. “I’m not a bard. And the healing… only seems to be good for small things.”

“My life wasn’t a small thing,” Molly said softly.

Yasha thought about when she had first found Molly, when she had gone to the clearing she had been dreaming about for a week, where she had been told to go and there she would find someone who needed her help. And Molly had been lying there, nearly dead and with not a scratch on him, and she had put her hands on him and he had opened his eyes. She still didn’t know what had happened to him, and he hadn’t told her. Maybe someday he would.

“No,” Yasha said, just as softly. “No it wasn’t.”

There was a heavy silence then, of the sort you get when the world seems to be holding its breath. It was Molly who broke it with a chuckle.

“I seem to have brought down the mood of the room considerably, and this is not a night when I want to be thinking heavy thoughts. Do we have any more of that… what was it?”

“I can’t think of the name just now, but I do remember where I got it, which is fortunate, because I like it very much.” Yasha leaned forward to rummage through her bag for her pouch of the stuff, Molly’s fingers trailing though her hair. She rolled two cigarettes under Molly’s watchful eye, and passed him one.

“You’re getting awful good at that,” Molly said, popping a match alight with his thumbnail and lighting his own cigarette before passing the match to her for her to light her own.

“It’s your corrupting influence,” Yasha said with a grin, her mouth full of the taste of starlight and roses.

“So they don’t mind it then?” Molly waved a hand in the general direction of the ceiling, as if to indicate the divine realms and Whomsoever lived there. Smoke swirled in the wake of his hand. “Our…. _friendship_ seems like an inadequate word, doesn’t it?”

“It does.” Yasha blew out a cloud of smoke and tilted her head a little, trying out a few combinations of words in Celestial, the syllables ringing like water through bells.

“Sounds pretty,” Molly said, tying off another braid and working on the next. “What does it mean?”

“It’s…” Yasha frowned, gesturing with her hands in the air as if she could shape the words in Common into something better. “Like the glow of a light through an open window.”

Molly laughed, not unkindly. “It sounds better in Celestial, I think.” He tried to mimic what she had said, and Yasha laughed, scooting away from him and turning around so he could look at her properly.

“You taught me Infernal, I’ll teach you Celestial, it’s only fair.”

“Teach me the important things first. Does Celestial have curse words? I’m not learning any language you can’t curse in.”

Yasha said a word that sounded like a bell being crushed by a rock, and the sound of Molly’s laughter mixed with hers filled the room like smoke.

***********

Yasha looked over the motley crew of adventurers as they finished loading up the wagon. Caleb had Nott up on his shoulders, keeping her away from the general hustle and bustle and stopping her from spooking the horse with her mere presence. Jester was already in the wagon, munching on a doughnut and giggling to herself as she drew something in her sketchbook. Beau and Fjord were the ones doing all the heavy lifting, it seemed.

“So you’re going, then?” Yasha asked, as if she didn’t know the answer.

Molly shrugged. “Might as well. It’s what, two weeks maybe before we hit Zadash? It’ll give me something to do, and if I decide I don’t like the company, well, it’s not a bad city to be in for a little while, before moving on. You’re still staying then?”

“I have to,” Yasha said. “You know how it is, with me.” She flicked her eyes up towards the heavens to indicate what she was getting at. “And besides, that many people I hardly know all crowded together in one wagon? I only just got out of jail.” Yasha’s skin crawled at the memory. She was thankful that she had learned in her travels that meditation wasn’t just for monks and elves. She had only barely just managed to keep herself from trying to rip the bars of her cell free with her bare hands. “All other things aside, I just want to enjoy the open air and some time alone. No offense.”

“None taken,” Molly said smoothly. “And don’t tell me there isn’t a certain monk you wouldn’t mind being all crowded up close to.” He chuckled. “Seriously, Yasha? You picked the worst person. I’d put in a good word for you, but she’d probably reject it out of hand, coming from me.”

Yasha laughed and elbowed Molly gently in the side. “And what about you?”

“Jester has… possibilities,” Molly conceded. “She’d be fun. I could use a bit of fun.”

“Don’t go breaking her heart,” Yasha said, and meant it.

“Who, me?” Molly clapped a hand to his chest. “I’m offended you would even think such a thing.”

They both smiled at each other, the moment stretching between them, the inevitable goodbye looming, unavoidable.

“I always hate this part,” Molly admitted.

“I’ll come find you when I’m done.”

“You always do. I’ll leave a light burning for you, and an open window,” Molly said. “Try not to stay away too long. Wouldn’t want you to miss all the fun.”

When they hugged, they hugged like it was the last time, because they both knew it very well could be, despite all their best intentions.

Yasha watched Molly leave with everyone else, the faintest of smiles on her face until the cart was out of sight, before sighing and turning away. She had work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where Yasha is actually from. Just picture somewhere with mountains and snow and goats. Also pretty wildflowers.
> 
> Dragon Poker is a reference to a fantasy book series that I will be genuinely surprised if anyone remembers without having to Google it.


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